MailChimp's posterous

The point about working is not to produce great stuff all the time, but to remain ready for when you can.

Over the course of his career, Brian Eno used a multitude of tools and strategies to assist the creative process. You can read more about Eno's tactics and the creative process in general at The 99%.

Humans are in general efficient beings. However, we have an annoying habit of making our work fill our time. When we were students we would always finish our essays with an hour to spare before the deadline. We could have written the paper the day after it was given and taken the rest of the week off but we didn’t, we made the work fit the time – it’s the same now that we are in the workplace.

What do you think about the idea of shifting to a 4 day work week? Has your company adopted this approach? Please chime in and let us know!

Soloway, 31, was once the scourge of the internet, an arrogant menace who seemed to relish filling inboxes with junk and defying government investigators to stop him. He didn’t just sell Viagra pills like most spammers; for $149, he taught thousands of spammers how to sell their own Viagra.

(via Wired)

The availability of new sets of data has changed the way we live our lives: here are 10 examples of data which have changed everything from how we assess wars to how companies deliver milk.

Full article here.

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, according to Daniel H. Pink in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. (via)

I cannot recommend this book (and the abridged animated summary) highly enough. It may prove to be the most worthwhile ten minutes of your day, and is a must watch for employers and employees alike.

What's bad, boring, and barely read all over? Business writing. If you could taste words, most corporate websites, brochures, and sales materials would remind you of stale, soggy rice cakes: nearly calorie free, devoid of nutrition, and completely unsatisfying.

When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you're saying, "Our products are like everyone else's, too." Or think of it this way: Would you go to a dinner party and just repeat what the person to the right of you is saying all night long? Would that be interesting to anybody? So why are so many businesses saying the same things at the biggest party on the planet -- the marketplace? [...] If you care about your product, you should care just as much about how you describe it.

Jason Fried, Why Is Business Writing So Awful?

If I had to identify the single greatest offender when it comes to reactionary workflow – a passive approach to work where our priorities are ruled entirely by incoming communications – email would be the obvious choice. Empowered by the alluring goal of “Inbox Zero,” we feel a sense of accomplishment in tending to a constant stream of incoming (but not very important) requests. It’s the Inbox Hero Mentality: “I may not be making any headway on my to-do list, but I’ll be damned if there’s one message lying in wait!”

You're probably nodding your head in agreement... (read more here)

Successful marketing today doesn’t sell features; it sells benefits. This product will save you time. This product will save you money. This product is important for your identity. But successfully selling benefits requires more than cut-and-dry statements. Selling benefits involves making a magical promise (and then fulfilling it).

via the NeboWeb Blog

Email signatures are so easy to do well, that it’s really a shame how often they’re done poorly. Many people want their signature to reflect their personality, provide pertinent information and more, but they can easily go overboard. Why are email signatures important? They may be boring and the last item on your list of things to get right, but they affect the tone of every email you write.

Email signatures contain alternative contact details, pertinent job titles and company names, which help the recipient get in touch when emails are not responded to. Sometimes, they give the recipient an idea of who wrote the email in case it has been a while since they have been in touch. They are also professional: like a letterhead, they show that you run a business (in some countries, you’re required to do so). Here are some tips on how to create a tasteful signature that works.

Read more here.